The Historians' History of the World 03

In the meantime, the Persian wings which had been vanquished in the onset, had had some time in which to launch a number of ships and get first on board. In especial, the embarkation of the cavalry, which had probably remained behind the wings, must have been effected. This cannot have required very much time, since the horse-transports were flat-built vessels. When the Athenians wished to follow up the pursuit of the Persians and Sacæ by the shore, they attempted to take or set fire to such ships as were still within reach. Thereupon there ensued a hot fight in which fell many men of name, such as polemarch Callimachus, the strategus Stesilaus, and Cynægirus, brother of the poet Æschylus. The Athenians succeeded in gaining possession of only seven ships; with the others the Persians got away and then made for the islet of Ægilia, to take on board the Eretrians they had left there.

The Persians were already in their ships, when it was noticed in the Athenian camps that a signal had been made by a shield, set up apparently upon the height of Pentelicus. It was believed that it had been given by the traitors in the town. Apparently on the morning after the battle the Persian fleet left Ægilia and steered its course for Cape Sunium. As soon as the Athenians observed the direction taken, the strategi could no longer doubt that it was the town which was aimed at. Forthwith they started with the army, and, by a rapid forced march, succeeded in reaching Athens before the enemy, and there set up a camp on the Heracleum, at the southern foot of Lycabettus, in Cynosarges. The Persian fleet soon showed itself above the height of Phalerum, yet made no attack, but only anchored for a time and then sailed back to Asia.

Presumably Datis did not venture on a landing in sight of the Athenian army after the experience of Marathon. The defeat was not indeed a crushing one, but had been by no means insignificant, for the Persians had lost 6400 killed, to which a considerable number of wounded is to be added. Of the Athenians, 192 citizens had fallen in the battle. The town bestowed on them the peculiar honour of a common burial on the battle-field itself. Close by, a tropæum of white marble and a monument to Miltiades were erected. With the tithe of the spoil, the Athenians erected, amongst other things, a bronze group at Delphi. Every year, on the sixth of Bœdromion, the festival of Artemis Agrotera, a great goat sacrifice was offered to that goddess for the crowd of defeated enemies, in fulfilment of a vow of the polemarch, before the battle.

Pan, who had thrown his terror amongst the barbarians, received a sanctuary in the grotto on the northwest side of the rock-citadel. To him also an annual sacrifice was offered and a torch-race instituted. The memory of the victory which the Athenians, as advance guard of the Hellenes, had achieved always filled them with special pride. Poets and orators could not refer to it often enough.

The day of the battle cannot be determined with precision. Only this much is certain, that the fight took place at the time of the full moon, in one of the last months of the summer of the year 490. For after the full moon two thousand Lacedæmonians marched hastily from Sparta and made every effort to reach Athens in time. On the third day they arrived in Attica, but the battle had already been fought. After having viewed the scene of the Persian overthrow they started on their return march spreading eulogies on the Athenians.g

In an article in the Journal of Hellenic Studies

(1898), J. A. R. Munroh declares that the reason the Persians chose so disadvantageous a field as Marathon, was purely to lure Miltiades and the troops out of Athens while the plot was maturing by which the supporters of Hippias should open the gates and admit the Persians by way of Phalerum. But as usually happens, something hung fire, the Spartans approached and, before the signal of the shield could be raised, Miltiades had routed the land forces with undreamed success and was hastening back to Athens.

In this view, the strategy of the Persians becomes somewhat less contemptible and the march of the Spartans seems not so useless.a

ON THE COURAGE OF THE GREEKS

Modern history will never cease to ring with grateful praises of the Athenians and Platæans for their defence of Greece against Persia. They were the bulwark of the Occident against the Orient, of Europe against Asia. The Persian scholar can see many ways in which, to his mind at least, it would have been best if the Asiatic conquest of Greece had not thus been postponed for centuries. We of to-day shall always be glad that events fashioned themselves as they did until Europe was ready to resist any general enforcement of Asiatic ideals and customs.